Before I tried my hand at writing I was a receptionist, cafeteria worker at the college I attended, museum worker, bellhop, and about a dozen other different things that are pretty embarrassing so we're just going to skip over those things and pretend that they never happened ;D
At some point I got a little direction in my life and tried my hand at emergency medicine, since I am, or at least was, deathly afraid of needles I opted for the fun job in EMS, an EMT. It was a fun job, a bit stressful, but I learned a great deal and had the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life. I learned a great deal from my patients and have never forgotten the wisdom they imparted on me. After a short stint as a Residential Home worker I decided to try the stay-at-home mom job and found out something very important.
I can't just sit around with nothing to do while I try to be deathly silent so that I don't wake up one of my children and send them into a blood curdling screaming fit. So, to fill the time I started to read again. When I was in school I was a bookworm, but got away from it as I grew older. I was drawn back into my love of reading by Julia Quinn's What Happens In London. It was a wonderful, witty book and I fell instantly in love with romance novels.
Some of the romance novels that I read were great and I couldn't get enough, I started to play with the idea of writing a book. Several months later I finally gave in and tried. For four months straight I worked day and night until finally I finished my first book. Then of course I re-read what I wrote, cringed and deleted the entire book and started over again. I started working on other projects and soon had two finished books, Tall, Dark & Lonely: A Pyte Series Novel and A Humble Heart: A Hollywood Heart's Novel. It was a very exciting time except for one little problem......
I had absolutely no idea what to do with the books now that they were done. So, of course I put the books aside and forgot about them for a little while I worked on other books. Months later I decided that maybe I should do something with them. I looked into getting published, admittedly not very hard since what I read about the publishing process wasn't exactly making me jump and down with excitement.
After reading an article about self-publishing I knew that was the way I wanted to go. I like the freedom to write what I want, when I want and publish a story that I hope others will enjoy reading. It gives me a great deal of freedom and allows me to retain full control over my work, which of course allows me to set the prices of my books and make them affordable for everyone :) Which of course is the reasoning behind the $0.99 price tag for my books.
That's how I became a writer and why I self-publish. Well, that and I'm pretty laid back and don't want to be hassled with contractual obligations. That would just cut into my writing time, time with my kids, reading time and my hot cocoa addiction. Yes, I am thoroughly addicted to hot cocoa and if you're interested in experiencing the perfect cup of cocoa you can find the recipe for my cocoa somewhere on my author blog.